“There’s Only This”: Atheism and the Search for Meaning in Ian Mcewan’s Fiction

Davis, Olivia Hope
(2017)
“There’s Only This”: Atheism and the Search for Meaning in Ian Mcewan’s Fiction.
Undergraduate thesis,
under the direction of Daniel Stout from
English,
The University of Mississippi.

Abstract

In this thesis, I offer readings of Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love, Saturday, and The Children Act to study the relationship between meaning and faith. This is an important question because some New Atheists have pointed to McEwan’s work as proof that meaning is possible in the absence of God. In this thesis I suggest that while McEwan makes a strong case for the possibility of meaning through aesthetic experiences, he also complicates meaning by suggesting that it is only achievable in the context of belief in the irreducibility of ideas like love, beauty, and wonder.